


Autumn — 2001

by trash_bat



Series: Years and Years [1]
Category: British Actor RPF, British Comedy RPF, Nathan Barley (TV) RPF
Genre: 2000s, Alcohol, Bars and Pubs, Class Differences, Coercion, Fondling, Gentle Mindfuckery, Humiliation, Kissing, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Shame, Slow Burn, Underwear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-24 11:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19172053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_bat/pseuds/trash_bat
Summary: Post Brass Eye special, pre-Nathan Barley. Charlie and Chris get to know one another better.((Can't believe I'm tagging this "slow burn" but you know what? Slow fucking burn.))





	Autumn — 2001

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreathed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/gifts).



> _Suggested Pairings_  
> [“Connection” - Elastica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilKcXIFi-Rc)  
> [“Change” - The Lightning Seeds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-I6Or6g38Q)  
> [“How Soon Is Now?” - The Smiths](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztC_7nkAd8)  
> [“Blue Monday” - New Order](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYH8DsU2WCk)  
> [“Hey” - The Pixies](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2oy1y7)  
> [Soya Cappuccino](https://i2.wp.com/metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ad_166598483.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=644%2C855&ssl=1)/[Velkopopovický Kozel Černý](https://secure.ce-tescoassets.com/assets/CZ/418/8594404001418/ShotType1_540x540.jpg)

Charlie assumes Chris’s got reasons for wanting to meet since the special aired. _Hasn't he?_ Yeah, course he does. When they’re together he’s unfailingly polite. Wants to know what happened during his shift, if listings ideas are simmering on the hob. Once he’s over the initial weirdness, it’s pretty enjoyable, talking to Chris like they’re remotely on the same fucking level.

Except he’s on Charlie’s nut, like, a _lot_ . He’s popped by CEX out of the blue — _my office is around here_ he tells Charlie, who watches him flit around like an improbably giant moth before alighting on the box for _Counter-Strike_. Charlie tries to concentrate on his import _PC World_ but finds it impossible with Chris there. He must touch every single thing that’s on display, read each line of copy with his brow furrowed in — interest? maybe confusion? It’s a bitch to tell.

Finally after twenty minutes an actual customer saunters in and Chris’s head whips round the racks to see who it is. The guy wanders back to the magazines leaving them alone, more or less, again.

 _I'm going to pop over to the pub_ Chris tells Charlie, _come by after?_

 _Uh_ he stammers, eyes flicking up to the wall clock. _Except,_ _I don't get off for another hour._

Chris smiles at him in an expansive way. _Sounds about right to me._ He taps his fingers against the counter. _Hope to see you later._

 

\---

 

After work is one thing, fine, but he’s texting, too. Leaving voicemails, messages on the answerphone. It’s got to the point that Charlie’s pushing back his own pub date with Grace yet-a-fucking-gain and well, fair’s fair, she’s not best pleased.

A sharp intake of breath from across town. _Third time you’ve pulled this. Why’s it so hard to settle with him?_

 _Dunno_ Charlie says, patting his pockets down before realizing, with a guilty jolt, that he's already got a lit cigarette on the go. He shifts the phone to his opposite ear, reaches for the saucer that’s been pressed into ashtray service. _Not like I’m gonna argue, though, now am I?_

 _Where’re you meant to meet?_ she asks. Oh, she’s angry. Definitely angry. _Can you come round after?_

 _The park? Bit weird, that_ he says. He’ll buy her dinner soon, at a place with cloth napkins and proper chairs. There'll be extra shifts to pick up at work. Wedding season, summer holidays, long weekends. He'll find the money somehow. 

She laughs down the line. _Fuck’s sake, Charlie. A right pair, you two are. Like a couple of spies. Didn’t you hear? Cold War’s over. We won that round._

Charlie coughs, extracts the second-to-last fag from the pack — why’s he always running out of the bloody things? — sticks it in his mouth alongside the first one then swaps them out. He lights the new one off the ember of the old before crushing the butt into the saucer hard enough to bend it in half. The brown circle staining the filter’s centre is a bleak reminder about his inevitable lung cancer diagnosis ten years down the line. He flicks it onto its side. Now all he can see is orange-coloured paper.

He puffs with satisfaction. God, smoking's nice. And besides, it's not like nuclear armageddon isn't still an option. Might as well.  _Five thousand nuclear warheads pointed at us, Gracie. Four minute warning still applies._

 _Sure, a decade ago, maybe_ . _It’s all dirty bombs now._

 _Oh, fuck you_ he says, and rings off.

 

\---

 

Grace does have a point, he thinks. About the dirty bombs, and that Chris is hard to settle with. Settle _on_.

 _Marlborough Gate_ is what he’s written but as he’s on the way his phone buzzes against his thigh. True to his luck when he's reaching for it the bus brakes abruptly and sends him careening into the next passenger over.

 _Sorry_ Charlie tells the gray-faced man, who wrinkles his nose and then goes back to staring out the window. He readjusts his grip, peering down at the little text box.

_Bench by the waterfowl._

Charlie sighs. He signals for the next stop and trudges back along the route he’s only just traveled. He pauses to light up and wonders, for a hot second, if Chris isn’t simply playing an elaborate, long-form prank on him.

If that’s the case then he’s doing a hell of a job covering it up. Maybe he is a spy after all.

 _Did you bring them bread?_ Charlie asks once he locates him by the duck pond. _Or do you prefer watching?_

He’s wearing burgundy cords, battered gray Converse, a shirt-scarf-jacket combination that could have been lifted from Keith Richards. On anyone else it would look ridiculous. On him — Chris extends his legs out to their full length, crosses his ankles in front of him, and Charlie is forced to cough to cover the lump rising up in his throat — well, scratch that. He still looks like a posh tit. It’s the height of summer. Why’s he wearing all those clothes?

 _It’s actually bad for them to have it_ Chris says, without diverting his attention from the ducks floating past. There are swans, too, graceful, mean-looking fuckers. Charlie doesn’t trust swans.

_Too many empty calories?_

Chris snorts. He sits up and draws his legs (his fucking _legs_ ) — back, his knees spread apart with his hands (Jesus Christ, his _hands_ ) folded between them.

Charlie’s been waiting for Chris to laugh outright. It’ll happen, he hopes, one of these days. Soon enough. Won’t it?

 _Honestly, you’re not far off_. Chris is back to looking concerned, his focus on the pond.

His pulse quickens. He wants to remember this: Chris’s wry little smile, how his weight shifts on the bench as he moves to rake a hand through his hair, flattening out some of the curls. All of it. 

_Ducks can get malnourished when they fill up on bread in place of their regular diet. It can lead to wing deformities. Happens more often than you’d think._

Charlie isn’t quite sure what to make of this information. He nods solemnly, in case Chris is serious which, he supposes, he always is, even when he’s being funny.

 

\---

 

In the end, it comes about that same afternoon. What he’d’ve given for Chris to laugh because he’d said something impossibly clever, unexpected and brilliant  — but no. No, that’d be too fucking easy, and when has anything, pray tell, come easily for Charlie?

They’re sat on the bench. Talking, he supposes, but really it's more like Chris asks him things and he answers to the best of his ability, and all the while Chris watches the activity around them. Birds, other animals, families — women, mainly. Mothers or nannies, sometimes both, with small, sticky children held firmly by the hand, though there is one Nordic-looking fellow who’s got a baby strapped to his chest. He’s drinking from a takeaway cup and talking into his mobile, and while Charlie is working out what he can say about this person, this Scandi-twat, to Chris to make him laugh, a wasp flies straight at his face.

He jumps out the way, narrowly managing to avoid it, and bangs into the bench’s iron arm, dropping his fag in the process.

The wasp darts down to investigate.

 _Oh fuck OFF _ Charlie shouts at it. The Danish guy ( _Danish_ , Charlie had decided, his brain having got that far in composing a whatever the joke was going to be before the wasp had showed up to ruin it) looks over in their direction. Charlie considers sticking two fingers up at him, since they’re already most of the way there, his cigarette having fallen down to the ground where it lies, smoldering next to his shoes. The wasp buzzes off, its path describing lazy circles before it’s far enough away that his heart stops thudding. Chris, shoulders shaking from laughter, covers his mouth with one large hand.

His scalp prickles; he wants to punch the air. He made Chris laugh. Not like he’d wanted, yeah, but nevertheless. Never-the-fucking-less. _Come off it_ he says, doing his best not to smile himself. _Wasps are terrible. It was coming straight at me._

Then he remembers the cigarette and his mood changes from pleased to pissed off. Christ, he’s skint as fuck. Can’t afford to be chucking any without smoking them first. How bad it would look to pick it back up? It’s only been a second.  

 _Leave it_ Chris tells him. With reluctance he quashes the thing under his toe and is about to go for another when Chris reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket. Holds out his own pack. Charlie says _are you sure_ and Chris encourages him _go on._ He takes his time choosing: as if one were any different from the other; when he'd rather keep than smoke it.

Bring it home, seal it up in a plastic baggie, put it in his freezer and bring it out on special occasions to sniff. Totally normal.

Chris’s fingers graze Charlie’s wrist as he gives him a light, and he has to glance away after it's caught, puffing furiously to hide his fluster. Would it be too ridiculous to hold onto the filter once it’s smoked down? Would Chris notice?

 _What do you know about Hoxton?_ Chris has put the pack away without having one himself, hands on his knees now as he looks straight ahead. Charlie’s mouth makes sounds that hopefully will turn out to be sensible words but really he’s berating himself that _no he can’t keep it_ because Chris notices fucking _everything._

 

\---

 

Charlie’s co-worker’s having a birthday do. At a _bar_. On a  _Saturday_. In fucking _Islington_.

Little convincing is needed for him to bail after one overpriced vodka to meet Chris at the pub he favours, which has reassuringly sticky carpet and a menu that consists of unshelled peanuts in bags, and crisps in two flavours, neither of which, the barman tells him, is currently stocked.

He buys his own half and slides into the seat opposite Chris, who’s backed up to the wall. There’s a newspaper spread out before him on the table, the headlines screaming and grim: rubble, corpses, catastrophe, terror.

Chris tucks the paper away and stashes it in his bag. Charlie drinks his beer, and feels pleased even though the world might be ending. Still, they’re a long way from lower Manhattan. The world can go fuck itself if it means he’ll get to stay in this moment and keep Chris all to himself. Beneath the table, their knees knock together in a way Charlie thinks — _hopes_ — might not be entirely accidental.

As always, Chris has questions for him, and with every round Charlie becomes more and more talkative. By closing time he’s loose around the mouth, relaxed. Slurring, a tiny bit. Chatty, you could say, and the throwaway line he tosses off about _Shoreditch twats_ manages to send Chris into gales of laughter despite it not being all that funny, really. Eventually the laugh subsides into a wide, toothy smile that makes Charlie warm underneath the collar and everything else — the crowd, the clink of glass, what day of the week it is — to melt away like ice that's fallen onto hot pavement. There’s nothing left but him and his tentative handhold on his slippery glass; the smell of spilt beer and cigarettes; Chris's intense focus and wicked, crooked smile. 

 _It's only a pub_ , he reminds himself. A normal, slightly gone-to-seed pub. Why on _earth_ does it feel so fucking dangerous? 

 

\--- 

 

He'd forgot to set his alarm. Typical. But in his defense he’d been righteously pissed the night before.

A bloody Sunday shift taken as a favour for the coworker whose party he’d bailed on. He’d like to feel smug but his hangover isn’t having it. _It_ is a loud-mouthed lorry driver in a greasy spoon demanding a bacon sarnie and a coffee the size of a petrol tank, his body a frazzled waitress trying to placate its demands. He’s late arriving, fumbling with the padlock, slow with the alarm code when he punches it in with still-oily fingers. It’s a sunny day, the bright glare through the shop windows necessitating retreat to the back room. He’ll hear the bell if anyone comes in. There’s a stack of reissues that need to be checked against existing inventory, priced, but all Charlie can really manage is to rest his head atop his folded arms, and moan into them. Quietly, otherwise it hurts his head.

Grace’s text pattern vibrates his phone awake. With one eye open he glances down at the blinking gray box.

_feel any better?_

Charlie grimaces at the words. Typing a two-letter answer sounds like way too much work now but after an hour or so has passed — three paying customers, one resale, and one day drunk he had to shoo out — the worst is behind him. He nicks an energy drink that's been left behind in the mini fridge, vowing to replace it before he leaves for the day, scoops up his sunglasses, and heads for the door. He glances up at the wall clock, which says he’s got three hours and four minutes before he can lock up, drag his sorry arse back home, and pull the duvet up over his head. His phone says it’s four minutes later, making it a round hundred and eighty minutes.

The hangover bleats in his face like a sheep about to birth a lamb. _Go home_ it says _go home and stay there forever, in the dark._

He decides to go with what’s on the phone, it's pegged to the atomic clock, probably, and is about to text Grace back — _yes i feel like shit, fuck you i’m not going_ _anywhere_ _tonight_ — when the phone chirps.

His heart leaps into his throat when he reads the message. Smoke wafts into his eyes and he waves it away, but it’s too late. They’re watering something fierce, and he blinks, rapidly, to keep from getting all soggy. 

 

\---

 

 _He made you do_ _what_ _?_

Grace appears horrified which is, Charlie decides, the only correct response to what he’s just told her.

 _I know._ He shudders to recollect it, stubs out his fag. A few details had been elided here and there, but the gist was the same. _D’you want another?_

A leisurely walk around the duckpond was one thing, but on that particular sunny Sunday Chris had fetched him from work, his hands clumsy as he locked up, and before Charlie could even light his first after-shift fag (yes, he _can_ take smoke breaks; no, it’s _hardly the same_ when a potential customer-slash-shoplifter could arrive at any moment and interrupt him) had set out at a brisk pace in the direction of the river. He’d talked, too, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and poor Charlie had been forced to trot at double-speed to keep up, his eagerly-awaited cigarette discarded after only a few hasty puffs.

One long, winding, winded path later, and Charlie had found himself stood in front of the Embankment station.

 _I usually take the bus_ he’d said, which was true, whereupon Chris had produced a Travelcard from somewhere and pressed it into his hand.

 _It’s good for the whole month._  Charlie had spluttered but Chris merely said  _see you later,_ after which he'd clapped his shoulder and watched, expectantly, until Charlie went in. 

On the escalator he'd thought that perhaps he’d got sunburn on the back of his neck, his ears, as they had gone quite warm. When he’d arrived home, he checked the mirror. Just to be certain. No. His neck seemed fine.

Grace is lighting matches, watching them burn down until they almost singe her chipped red nails, and then, with a wince, tossing them in the direction of the ashtray.

 _One for three._ He pushes over her cider, nods at the spent matches. _Not bad._

She lights another one, this time putting it to use for its intended purpose. _He just showed up at your work?_

Charlie chooses his next words carefully. _G_ _ot an office nearby. He’s mentioned it before._

Grace shifts her cigarette and clamps it between her teeth. _It’s probably in a walk-up._

His pulse quickens. He can’t think of Chris. Can't think of him _like that_ , certainly not with his best friend around. That could get awkward quite quickly. He shakes his head and reaches for her Silk Cut.

 _Oi! S_ he slaps his hand back. _Smoke_ _your own._

He grumbles and pulls out a Marlboro. Grace has warmed to the topic now, and wants to keep on speculating. _A basement, then. Something creepy._

Like he hasn’t already analyzed the issue with the kind of careful attention he should have paid his dissertation. Still, she can’t possibly know that, and is likely to get cross if he doesn’t play along.

 _With a cement floor_ he says. It's like betrayal to even speak those words aloud. Like Chris will be able to tell, from miles away, that Charlie is speaking ill of him. His chest is tight as he considers the possibility.

_Hideous green walls. Like a hospital. No - no, a morgue._

He grimaces but goes with it. It is funny, after all, to imagine Chris in a cluttered, dingy lab: a scientist, a collector.  _Water stains on the ceiling._

_Metal shelves, like you’d see in the workshop of a mad museum curator._

_Anatomical specimens._

_Fingernails in jars._

_Taxidermied ravens... eating worms...made out of string. Y’know, like a little diorama?_

Grace laughs and laughs.

 

\---

 

Yet for all that he’s made jokes, and, yes, whined about his maltreatment silently within his own head, Chris texts the following Sunday and asks if Charlie fancies coming round his for a drink — his _office_ , mind. He’s not inviting Charlie into his home for a dinner party or out to a fancy restaurant. But an invitation is an invitation nevertheless. He’ll take it.

 _I can later but I have to close up_ he types, clicking the numbers until they become letters and the letters become words.

 _I’ll help_ and before he can say no that's followed by a  _see you soon._

Store policy is employees only after hours, especially when you’re meant to be counting down the till, but he figures if he does it quickly then no one need be the wiser. They stop along the way for beers — Chris asks the guy behind the counter a dozen rapid-fire questions before deciding on something foreign with a goat on the label, which he purchases while Charlie is fumbling for his wallet. He buys a pack so as not to look stupid, though he doesn't actually need it immediately. Down to less than forty a day, a victory hard-won mainly by stepping up his spliff consumption. But on balance, he thinks as he pockets the new pack, an improvement. Right?

Chris goes too fast for him to smoke, so he waits until they've stopped in front of a converted townhouse on Poland Street. Brown London brick. Ordinary as you like.  _On the outside_  and his stomach gives a little lurch at the prospect. 

Chris pulls a keyring from his pocket and almost apologetically says  _I’d rather you didn’t smoke in my office_ through pursed lips. _If you don’t mind_.

Charlie looks down at the cigarette he’s holding, barely a quarter finished. _Goddamn it._ He takes a couple hurried, long drags, sucking in his cheeks, and feels himself go woozy from the nicotine rush. It's either that, or the curious look Chris is giving him. Gotta be the nicotine. 

 _No problem_ he says, and tries to pass the words off lightly. He grinds the remainder out beneath his shoe.  _Lead the way._

Chris goes first. It takes only a few moments for him to clamber ahead, whereas Charlie is gasping, red-faced, by the time he’s managed to ascend to the first landing. The lightheadedness, utterly pleasurable out there on the street, now threatens to become a severe liability. His lungs are straining for air, calves cramping. Chris, wouldn’t you know, has bounded on, presumably to engage in a spot of light calisthenics while he waits for Charlie to catch up.

At last he heaves himself up to the top floor — why _not_ the top floor, course, it’s not as if he hadn’t been punished enough by the fucking _stairs_ — and stands there stupidly, waiting for his pulse to equalize, his heart to stop racing. Chris has left the door ajar, and from inside he can hear plastic rustling, the clink of glass.

He places one hand on the doorway, takes the deepest breath his lungs can manage, then steels himself for what's on the other side. 

The door creaks as he opens it. It's a room, medium-sized, pretty plain. It feels lived in, messy, but grown-up, somehow. There's flyers from gigs hung up but Chris has had them framed and then hung in artfully composed clusters, not simply blu-tacked up and patched with sellotape. There’s a massive hi-fi system against the far wall, top-of-the-line speakers, crates and crates of vinyl records. A shallow metal and wood shelf spans floor to ceiling and holds CDs; a smaller one beside it overflows with cassette tapes.

There’s a couple big whiteboards leant up against the walls covered in skittery handwriting in black and blue marker. A fairly standard issue desk with a candy-coloured iMac in pride of place, and sat next to that, a large pillar candle. There’s a wastebin overflowing with takeaway coffee cups, wadded up sheets of paper, more beer bottles sporting foreign names Charlie can’t read. In the middle of the room is a pale green sofa. There’s a rug on the floor, a coffee table, thick books cluttering every horizontal surface.

Chris hums to himself as he flits about, flinging back the curtains and opening the few small garret windows. He cranes his neck to look askance off to the side and then says, as if the most wonderful notion has only just occurred to him _You’re not afraid of heights, are you Charlie?_

The answer to that is _yes_ , because honestly, it would be easier to provide an index card listing the things he _isn’t_ afraid of, but Chris is holding a bottle opener, and a bag full of beer, and looking expectantly at Charlie, waiting for his response.

He clears his throat, which turns into a cough that he hadn’t planned. It doesn’t sound too great. _Why?_ he asks, trying to keep it light. _Are you planning to push me out the ledge?_

Chris giggles, points with the bottle opener. _It’s a bit tricky to get there, but if you’re game, we can sit on the roof._

Charlie looks where he’s indicating and sees a setup on the adjacent rooftop with two white plastic chairs, a battered metal table that looks as though it was dragged in from a skip, or stolen from an abandoned surgery. 

He has to say yes. If he refuses he's liable to give offense, at the least make Chris think less of him. Is it a test? He fervently hopes it isn't, but say that it is? He wants to do well. He wants to do, well, what Chris wants. 

 _Ready?_ Chris asks, all lit up and smiling, and Charlie says _I guess_ and then he’s kind of climbing out the window with Chris’s hands spanning his waist. His head swims, again, and then his feet are on the ground and _fuck_ he's dizzy. He wonders if he can smoke out here. Maybe it'll calm him down. 

Chris reaches through and passes him the bag, then pulls himself through the window, a tangle of long limbs and hair, before dropping into a crouch.

A laugh burbles up unexpectedly — Chris makes a funny face as he hits the landing, his legs bending to catch his weight — and then he remembers they’re four floors up from the street and goes lightheaded at the thought.

The chairs are set back maybe four, three feet from the roof’s edge. What if he falls? One trip over a shoelace, one misstep is all it would take for him to tumble to his certain death. 

 _Charlie_ Chris has held out a hand and is beckoning him with it,  _Charlie, are you coming?_

 _Coming_ he answers, after gulping in a breath for bravery. _Yeah, on my way._

 

_\---_

 

One time becomes a weekly occurrence, and Charlie finds himself happy, relaxing into routine. Fridays he saves for Grace, his friend, singular (fuck you very much), hours spent at the pub or round hers, and Saturdays are supposed to be for being social but really he’s as likely to cancel as he is to commit to anything.

Skipping out on plans floods him with relief, the way it feels when a recalcitrant knuckle finally pops. It opens up glorious hours to waste all by himself: rolling up, forgetting he’d fixed tea, playing _GTA III_ until passing out on the couch. Most Sundays he stays in bed until the last possible moment, calculating the trigonometry between caffeine withdrawal headache and the delicious pleasure to be got from smoking _just one more_ cigarette in the warm comfort of his bed before he really, really, _really_ has to get up. Perhaps maths had come in useful after all.

Sunday nights he stays mostly sober and goes for lunch with Chris the following afternoon, unless he's had to work in which case they'll walk if it's clear out, or go up to his office if it's raining, and in an attempt to right the balance Charlie brings along beers which Chris always accepts, always thanks him for, always opens, and even deigns to drink on occasion. 

He really should ask Grace if he's reading the signals correctly but he feels too thick to even phrase it right. All he can manage is to watch carefully, and pay attention, and try his damnedest not to second-guess himself. 

There’s other things that get talked about, too, things that Charlie hasn’t quite realized he’s let slip until later, when he’s replaying the afternoon on the bus, maybe pretending to read a magazine but in all honestly allowing himself to be in that delicious place — where he’s remembering _what got said_ and _how Chris said it_ and what he was _doing with his massive hands while he said it_ — which, while it won't coax his cock to full attention, is sufficient to thicken it up underneath his discreetly clasped hands, a guilty little pleasure to savour while he looks out the window. 

 

\---

 

At work, riding the bus. In the shower. Before he goes to sleep, while he's taking a piss or having a wank he thinks about it. What Chris’s face feels like, how his dick tastes. What it would be like to kiss him. An awful, _awful_ lot.

Whenever there’s a solid break in the cloud cover Chris drags Charlie out to the roof to ask him questions: about drawing, and video games, why does he like them, what kinds of people come to the shop, Nathan Barley, has he watched anything brilliant lately, and what did he think made a good sitcom? Charlie’s voice sounds loud in his ears when he answers, but they ring outright one day when they’re out there, up there, Chris fiddling with his shirtsleeve when he offhandedly says _don’t you think it’d be good to stop talking, sometimes?_

He shifts uncomfortably. The plastic chair creaks. He needs to go to the toilet but isn’t up to the task of climbing back in through the window. He’s seen Chris piss into an empty bottle on occasion — with his back turned, it wasn’t as if Charlie had actually caught glimpse of anything — if he’d been looking, which he fucking _hadn’t_ — but he’s got beer left to drink. It’s warm now, the bottle tepid in his clammy hand, and he nearly gags as he swallows.

His answer dies in his throat. Shit, he’s staring, he should stop staring. Why is Chris wearing shorts? It's practically winter. He drags his gaze back up to Chris’s face _not lingering on his legs not lingering on his hands_ until they’re looking at one another dead on. Fuck. That was a mistake. 

 _Seen enough for one afternoon?_ Chris asks in the bright, merry tone of a radio operator in a wartime propaganda film.

His back prickles with embarrassment. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. 

Chris’s curls bob as he shakes his head. _Have I got to spell it out for you?_ Helooks Charlie over, a little manic behind the eyes, which is enough to make him feel like he’s been punctured in the lungs, blood seeping into his chest cavity.

 _No_ he breathes, his heart hammering in his temples. Looks like he might not have to hurl himself off the roof after all. _No, no you haven’t got to._

Chris leans back into his chair, apparently satisfied with that answer.  _Good_ he says crisply, like that’s the matter settled, and perhaps, in some way, it is. His tongue darts out, flicks against his bottom lip and Charlie watches, mesmerised. 

At this rate, he's going to wither and die on the vine before he ever gets to sink his hands into Chris's hair.

 _Fuck it._ Charlie closes the distance between them before his conscious brain can intervene. His tongue is fat in his mouth, salivary glands already kicking into overdrive.

Chris pulls away, grins.  _About fucking time._ Charlie whines high in his throat.

His eyes are crinkling with amusement, his hand exerting the slightest possible pressure on Charlie’s shoulder. Okay, _okay_. He knows this, he can do this. He knocks his bottle over in his scramble onto the ground ( _the roof_ , his brain shrieks at him, _you’re on the fucking roof)_ and while he's down there, surreptitiously glances around to make sure there aren’t any other people in his sightline.

The spilt beer seeps up onto his knee but that does nothing to slow, to deter him. His hands are fumbling for Chris’s fly because if he can just do this one thing, do this _one thing_ right, then he’ll be past the worst of the shame. For a little while at least.

Chris stops him and says  _whoa whoa hang on a minute_.

His hands slacken as he awaits further instructions. Whatever Chris is after, then that's what Charlie wants too. But he wants to, so much.

 _Come back inside_ he says. Charlie nearly chokes when he's pulled up from his kneeling position, almost cries out when Chris steers him towards the window and helps him through. They've left the litter on the roof, and he worries, for a hot dumb minute, that his bottle will roll off and hit a pedestrian on the head. Can you be liable for injury by falling rubbish? 

Chris brings his hand up to the side of Charlie’s face, touches his mouth gently with his forefingers.  _Greedy little bitch, aren’t you?_ he says and Charlie very nearly folds to the floor again.

He’s not. He _isn’t_. Oh God, _is_ he?

 _Let’s try that again, shall we?_  

 

\---

 

What Chris wants, it turns out, is to lay Charlie out on his sofa and kiss him. For what feels like hours. Enough that his lips sting on the days in between and ensuring that he's hard, well, pretty much constantly. 

Sometimes Charlie will be on top and Chris will knead his backside, encouraging him to grind one out, but somehow they always seem to stop right before that happens. It's nice but he's thirty fucking years old; he's not a teenager snogging in his bedroom, praying his mum doesn't walk in. Not that that had ever happened, of course. Charlie hadn't been that kind of teenager. 

Sometimes Chris gets hard, too, and nudges against Charlie's leg, but not enough to give him any real information. It's driving him mad, the not knowing. 

 _Are you all right?_ Grace snaps her fingers underneath his noseand he jerks to attention.

 _What?_ he stammers _why_ ,  _what's happened?_

 _You're about to burn yourself_ she points. It's true. The filter's smoldering in his hand, tobacco long since turned into a long, dangling streamer of ash. 

 

\---

 

Soho sells sex, or at least it used to, and Chris takes him through storefronts into back rooms, down dimly lit stairs. That's after they've been on the sofa for three-quarters of an hour and his brain has turned to porridge, his dick dribbling down his pants. Chris will rouse himself with a confident shake of the head and say _Shall we see what's on tonight?_ and Charlie, bleary-eyed, blue-balled, agrees. With reluctance. 

After which Chris walks them confidently into the kind of establishments that Charlie, naïve as he'd been, assumed had disappeared in the seventies. Grotty, mucky places. He's not quite certain why they go there, other than that it amuses Chris to. People know Chris, though it's unclear to Charlie whether they actually _recognize_ him. Shop assistants, bookstore clerks, barmen, the guys working the hell out of their corners, the wizened old women guarding the merchandise behind a locked door and a dimly lit staircase.

They say _hello_ unprompted whereupon Chris enquires about the business and drops money on whatever they're selling, the same way he buys up everything (new hardbacks, import vinyl, tailored shirts, sushi, obscure beer) and when he spies Charlie lingering over a dongle, a magazine, a DVD, he’ll have them ring it up before he can open his mouth to protest. He gets everything on offer, save the prostitutes. He thinks. 

 _Where the fuck does it all come from_  Charlie wonders, since he’s stuck buying day-old-bread and battery hen eggs just to make it till his next payday, fishing through all his ashtrays for butts with enough tobacco left to empty out into new papers and re-roll, the saddest fix imaginable, the taste acrid and sour like burnt charcoal on his tongue.

 

\---

 

He'd been so absorbed in the selection at Prowler — trying to match the shape he'd felt earlier that evening hard against his inner thigh, muffled through layers of fabric, to one of the flesh-coloured models on display, each set up, perkily attentive, on its own little pedestal, but to be casual about it, nonchalant, like he _buys sex toys_ all the bloody time — that he hadn't noticed Chris making a purchase. 

 _Here_ he says, and gives Charlie a brown paper bag, a ludicrous bit of white tissue paper sticking out the top.  _Don't look until you get home_  he instructs. But Charlie, being Charlie, peeks when he's riding down the escalator and almost drops the bag in surprise. 

 

\---

 

Monday he buys them lunch and over lunch says _are you wearing them like I asked_ and Charlie chokes on his California roll and nods, looking around to make sure no one has seen them.

 _Good_ Chris beams,  _very good._

Then after that, back to the office. Charlie winds up underneath Chris on the sofa; same song and dance. It's delicious, it's what he'd wanted in the first place and yet it never seems to be enough. There's something he's after that's frustratingly out of reach. If Chris had bought him — _that_  — because he'd wanted to see Charlie in them, then why doesn't he fucking _do something_ about it? 

 

_\---_

 

On Thursday they’ve gone out to the roof so Charlie can smoke where Chris says _do you have plans tomorrow night_ and Charlie has his pub date but he can do something before that, if Chris wants to? 

Chris wrinkles his nose in disgust and Charlie mumbles _I’ve blown her off too many times to count._

 _What’re you doing after?_ Chris asks and Charlie shrugs. _Dunno._ Usually they end up at hers, shoes off, feet on the coffee table, drinking cheap cider and shouting insults at Graham Norton. 

 _Meet me here at ten o'clock_ Chris says. _And Charlie —_

 

_\---_

 

He keeps checking the time on his phone, he thinks discreetly, until she catches him out. _Got somewhere else to be?_

 _I'm not feeling great_ he replies, sidestepping the question, blood pressure elevating even with that bit of deception. 

She scrutinizes him carefully.  _You're all sweaty, what's wrong with you?_

Charlie puts a hand on his belly and she knows how he gets, with his nervous stomach.  _Must have been something I ate._

_Told you to stay off the kebabs, didn't I?_

_I'll never learn. See you later?_

_Text me when you get home_ she says, and waves him off. 

 

_\---_

 

Thing is, his guts really _are_ churning by the time he reaches Soho. If he'd expected the usual — a little beer, a lot of kissing, heaps of excruciating sexual frustration — tonight offers a surprise. 

 _I want to take you out_ Chris says, shrugging his coat on. 

 _I've just come from the pub_ Charlie says, a bit stupidly. It should be obvious, as he's not completely steady on his feet. He doesn't want to go out. He wants to stay here in this warm little space, where he has Chris all to himself, and then go home and tug off relentlessly into a balled-up old t-shirt. Once to relieve the tension and a second time to savour, with a couple fingers shoved in his mouth for preference. 

Chris looks him over and seems to be coming to some kind of decision.  _Then it'll have to be a club. The pub'll close soon anyways._

A club? Oh no, _no_. 

But there's no time to argue as Chris is already through the door, holding it open, and Charlie's got no choice but to walk through. 

A normal club is bad enough, unless there was one with an exclusively spider- and wasp-based clientele, which, if such a place existed, he thinks miserably, watching Chris’s hair bounce as he jogs down the steps, then Chris would almost certainly know how to locate it.

Chris must slip the doorman some money when they arrive. Either that or he knows the guy somehow, the way everybody about town knows Chris, because there's a queue and every single person in it is attractive; at least, more good-looking than Charlie. He buys them drinks — and then leans one sturdy forearm against the bar and takes in the scene. 

Charlie always feels like a deformed walrus in places like this, but at least Chris doesn't seem to expect anything of him. He's not being pressured to dance and the music is too loud to have any real conversation. 

By the time the ice is melting in Charlie's vodka Chris has moved a lot closer, his arm now bracketing the two of them off in a way that seems disturbingly intimate. He's close enough that the blue lights glint off his dark eyes, close enough that Charlie can hear him, just barely, over the thump of what passes for music these days. 

 _Can we do something?_ he asks, all quiet and polite. Charlie's sudden answer is  _sure okay_ before he realizes that he's not entirely certain what he's agreed to. 

But Chris smiles and says  _wonderful come with me_. The club is hot, air thick with smoke and sweat, as Chris takes Charlie by the hand and leads him past the bar, past some tables, past people dancing, past people snogging, past people doing much more than that, past the toilets, until they come to a doorway lacking a door through which is a smaller room, the lights orange and red, the smell different, stronger, and Charlie jerks his hand away when he realizes what that smell is. Ammonia, bleach, cleaning fluid. It still smells like his flat after a weekend spent in bed, like the balled-up t-shirt when it's sat in the washing machine too long, gathering stink. 

 _Just for a minute._ Chris tugs on his hand.  

 _Don't want to_ Charlie mumbles. Chris drops Charlie's hand, backs away like he's disappointed. A stab of regret goes through him but he can't bring himself to go in there. Places like this aren't meant for blokes like Charlie. These are shiny, good-looking men with proper trousers and haircuts, not gormless mammals dressed in clothes their mums gave them three Christmases ago. 

_Five minutes? And then we'll go home, promise._

Charlie screws his eyes shut and that's enough of an answer. He lets Chris lead him to an open space against the far wall. He keeps his gaze trained on the floor, knowing that they're there, that they're scrutinizing him and finding him lacking. Yet somehow that’s not the worst thing; the worst thing would be to let Chris down, when he’s been so generous with Charlie, all these months. 

He's lightheaded, must be from the smoke, the closeness of the room. The smell burns the inside of his nose. But also, fuck. He's hard. So fucking hard, his cock trapped in his stupid tight pants. Jesus, what the fuck is going on? Why can't he focus? He hasn't even had that much to drink but he's woozy all the same. 

Chris ducks his head in and gives Charlie a shy, naughty little smile. _Come here_ he purrs, and Charlie’s forehead is sweating, his fucking _eyeballs_ are sweating from the stifling heat. He feels like he might black out and that’s before Chris presses his forehead against Charlie’s own and moves his hand —  _not_ down his pants, which was what he was anticipating, and frankly looking forward to, it's been ages since anyone who wasn't him touched it — but  _up._ Over Charlie’s stomach and crawling up his solar plexus, before coming to rest just where his neck and collarbone meet. It stretches out the material of his polo neck, distending it, and a noise escapes from his mouth when Chris grabs his shirt from the inside and pulls it away from his body.

It makes the collar scrape against his skin. He’s all jangly nerves, contained electricity about to spark like a tinderbox.

Chris appears pleased. 

He gets Charlie’s two hands in his free one and moves them carefully above Charlie’s head. His shirt rides up even more, exposing his stomach to anyone who cares to have a look. His eyes dart over to see who that might be, his dick pulsing crazily, angry at the thought that they might be interested in him, for God knows whatever reason. Instead he scrambles to focus on Chris, who's all up in his space, breathing hard, his lips parted as he looks Charlie over hungrily.

His hand comes up even further. Charlie can feel the fabric ride up over his stomach and he wants nothing more than to twist his hands free and yank the shirt back down but he won't do that. Chris cradles the back of Charlie's head with one hand, cushioning him from the wall. 

 _Don’t make me_ Charlie whispers, feeling huge and stupid and hideous. 

Chris kisses him by way of answer. 

The kiss is surprisingly gentle. The way his wrists are pinned to the sticky wall in one of Chris’s hands, though, is not.

His own mouth is too dry, too wet. Charlie is breathing heavily, his pulse quick in his neck.

 _Don't_ Charlie says again, but it's weak enough that either Chris can't hear him over the thudding bass, or he ignores it because he knows Charlie doesn't mean it, not really. 

His hand moves down to Charlie's waistband.

 _I bought these for you_ he reminds Charlie, and his face goes hot because it's true. He bought them; he's bought Charlie _loads_ of things, coffees and fry-ups and countless pints and memory sticks and cigarettes, too.  _Can’t I at least have a look?_ He makes it all sound eminently reasonable, like booking a taxi, buying a newspaper.

 _I'm just going to have a little feel_ he says, _all right?_ Charlie whimpers, hot shame flooding his veins. Chris takes pity on him, kisses him again and Charlie is still chasing his mouth even as he pulls away.

 _Charlie?_ he asks again, folding his fingers beneath Charlie's waistband, _can I do this?_

Charlie nods, fevered, sick with how bad he wants it. He’d let Chris do anything if it meant he’d get more attention. More kissing, more touching. More orgasms, yeah, he’d not say no to one of those either. He passes his tongue across his dry lips.

Chris undoes his jeans and then stops, rubs Charlie's stomach and remarks,  _you're so hot down there, should we give you some air_ and Charlie wants to shout _don't don't please don't_ because there are _people_ not five paces away and he can’t see if they’re masturbating or laughing at him but both seem like terrible, equally plausible options. 

 _I wonder if this is sweat_ Chris says and he fits his hand against Charlie’s erection and squeezes the hard line of it. The fabric had seemed wonderfully soft when he'd first put them on but now it scratches. He's all swollen now. Wet, too, and getting wetter every second. Precome pulses up, warm as piss or blood, and he’s glad Chris is holding his hands up, glad he can sag into the support and be assured he won’t tumble onto the filthy floor.

His stomach emits an anxious rumble.

Chris rubs his thumb against the slit, pushing the fabric up against where he’s sensitive, sodden, and that _does_ hurt, for real. Charlie’s hips buck like he wants to get away but then Chris is up against him, curly hair tickling his exposed neck and he says _go on, Charlie, have a look_ and he whimpers _no no no no_.

Charlie bucks forward. One hand slips free. He has to grab onto Chris's arm for balance, brain about to vibrate out of his skull, and Chris puts his mouth on Charlie’s, smiling against his lips and that makes Charlie’s own mouth lift up with pleasure —  he’s made Chris happy, he’s pleased him in some way — and he kisses Chris back with all the ferocity he can muster.

He’s lucky the sound system is top-notch. The throaty moans he’s making aren’t audible to anyone else. At least, he hopes they're not.

Chris can hear them, though, and when Charlie’s let out a particularly harsh one his face lights up in the dim room and he says _do that again for me_ and as if to punctuate his point he rubs his palm against Charlie’s crotch.

Charlie obliges. He didn't know it was possible to sound so loud in a loud room. 

Chris rubs his palm against Charlie’s groin again, like he’s settling him there to his liking, and at last, _at last_ asks _are you ready to leave?_

 _F_ _uck_ he says, and Chris bends down until he’s only a little taller than Charlie and bites his neck. He swallows and lets out a held breath.  _Yeah, th_ _is isn’t really my scene._

 _You did so well_ he says, and Charlie could scream he's so happy and then, thank the lord, they're headed back into the main room, where the overhead lights are pulsing and men in various stages of undress are grinding up against one another.

The street is a relief, and the cold sobers him up a little. His face is burning, and the bouncer shoots him a sympathetic look as if to say _knew you wouldn’t be able to cut it in there_ _mate_ but Charlie isn’t given the opportunity to feel annoyed despite it being true because Chris has him by the hand once more and they’re striding down a side street and then a lane and into an alley. He's drunk, or, more like all his blood has gone to his dick and he can't think straight. 

 _What the fuck_ he says, turning his face to the side in alarm as Chris backs him up against another wall, a colder brick one this time. _No, come on, you’re meant to take me home._

 _I can smell you from here, Charlie._ He gives Charlie the most wicked, vivacious grin that seems to say _we’re only having a bit of fun_  and _don’t you look awfully serious?_ and _for God’s sake, lighten up, Charlie._

The streetlights cast Chris’s face into shadow, his expression unreadable. That's when he kneels down and unfastens Charlie’s jeans for the second time that night. Charlie bites his knuckles as Chris rubs the fabric across the head of his cock, squeezing until he squeaks. 

Charlie very nearly doubles over from it, pushing his hips away from Chris’s hand. If he doesn't stop he's going to come all over himself. He gathers up his courage and says  _not here okay not like this_ despite knowing that if Chris asked him to get his cock out right here and now he'd be likely to injure himself from whiplash. 

 _Should I finish you off here?_ he says, almost politely, like maybe he’s asking about the weather forecast and if he’ll need an umbrella for the afternoon.

Charlie chokes on his inhale. It's impossible to determine if he's turned on or simply terrified and with a guilty jolt it occurs to him that it's not one or the other. No, fuck. It’s impossible to disentangle one from the other, and more than that, the _fear_ is what’s getting him riled up. He's afraid because he's so hard, and he's so hard because he's afraid. Chris seems awfully keen, too. 

 _Dunno_ he manages to answer.  _If you want to?_

Chris wipes his mouth and stands up. He's breathing heavily, too, and a sick little stab of pride courses through him before Chris brings him right back into his horrible, disobedient body.

 _I can’t have you walking around like this_ he says. He puts his index finger into Charlie's waistband and makes as if he’s going to peer down there but instead says _grab hold of yourself, Charlie, I want to try something._

As much as Charlie hadn’t been looking forward to being brought off in an alley, much as he’d been steeling himself for this new humiliation, and knowing, through his rapid breath, that he would have loved it, would have wanted to remember it again, probably only a few minutes after it’d happened, he can’t claim to be anything but relieved.

Chris walks behind him until they find a taxi. Charlie moves gingerly, awkwardly, with his erection tucked up against his stomach into the waistband of his pants, every step torturous and rubbing him raw. 

They get in: Charlie first, Chris’s hand on his lower back before he slides into the seat beside him. He somehow contrives to spend the whole ride — all twelve minutes that it takes them to wend their way back to Poland Street, don’t think Charlie isn’t counting down the fucking _seconds_  — chatting amicably with the driver, with his hand snug beneath Charlie’s inner thigh. His blood is so loud in his ears that he can’t begin to comprehend what they’re discussing. They could be talking about Charlie’s stupid erection and he'd be too far gone to notice.

Charlie nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get up the steps. From behind him, Chris giggles as he catches up and unlocks the office door. They tumble through it and then Chris turns the overhead lights on full-blast. 

 _I couldn’t see you well enough for my liking_ he explains.  _After all that you must be a mess._

Charlie winces at the brightness, winces once more as Chris takes stock of him. He's breathing hard after all those stairs. He needs a cigarette but he can't smoke in here, and it's cold, complicated out there on the roof. His temples tighten with the need for nicotine, but Chris is all up in his space, giving Charlie his full attention — it’s terrifying, to bear the brunt of that focus — and everything else recedes in the face of it. The terror makes his stomach drop and his face tingle — and next thing he knows his back is against the door, and his hands are in Chris’s hair, his leg being hitched up around Chris’s waist. If he doesn't get his cock out in the next seven seconds he might actually go insane.

Chris scrapes his teeth along Charlie’s jaw, digs his sharp hip into Charlie’s sore crotch. It is so hot down there, unbearably damp, and Charlie wants only to strip down to his pants and peel those off too, to slide down to the floor and spread his legs until the heat dissipates.

Without even thinking about it he lifts his hands up in an echo of the position Chris had put him in when they were in the club. It just seems like the thing to do. 

Chris’s eyes flick up to track the movement. _Oh,_ _Charlie_ he says, and Charlie feels a tiny stab of pleasure. He’s made Chris proud, he’s made Chris happy. He’s done something right for once in his miserable, underwhelming life, and he wants only to do more, do better, make Chris look at him the way he’s doing now for — well, for _forever_.

The other one is on his face, scratching at his back. It's roving over his body, unfastening his jeans and finding Charlie’s erection through the terrible, stupid, hideous underwear that he wishes he’d never let Chris buy for him. The relief is short-lived when he realizes that Chris isn't going to undress him any further than this. 

 _My downstairs neighbours keep daytime hours_ he says, as Charlie tries, and fails, to choke back a wheeze. _We’re all alone up here_.

Charlie’s eyes close, open. Close again.

 _We’re all alone now_ he repeats, close to Charlie’s ear before he sticks out his tongue and licks— _licks_ , fucking _hell_ — the side of Charlie’s face. _Are you going to be quiet?_

Charlie’s eyelids are heavy but he manages to open them. He stammers over the words that he barely feels brave enough to speak aloud. _D-do...do you want me to be?_

That lightness again, this unexpected fondness that Charlie has never seen directed at him before. It comes as a surprise that Chris is even capable of it, but then, why shouldn’t he be?

His throat constricts around a heavy swallow. His lungs are putting in as much overtime as a provincial police force experiencing the village’s first murder in four decades.

Chris's firm leg worms its way back in between his thighs and Charlie goes with it, rides the movement and relishes the pressure. When it's withdrawn he whimpers, goes to hide his face in Chris’s arm but Chris tuts at him - it sounds fond but that could just be an act — and there’s warmth wrapped around the filth, which has a certain logic— if you were to apply the laws of decomposing garbage to it, though he’s not certain which one of them is the landfill. God, his head is all fuzzy. He can't even make a proper analogy.  

 _It’s all right to enjoy it_  and that sounds promising. He rolls his hips experimentally and the noise that comes out of Charlie’s mouth had to have been implanted there by aliens, it had to, it fucking _had_ to. His vision swims.  _I want you to enjoy it._

Chris is somehow all over Charlie’s body and in his head at the same time. It makes him uncomfortable. It makes him harder than he’s ever been in his whole fucking life. If Chris keeps rubbing against him like this he’s going to come in his pants, which are simultaneously soaked through and, from where he’s leaked and dried, over and over and over again, stiff.

He wants to know, too. Can't leave well enough alone, to let Charlie experience the sensations without fucking asking him questions at every turn. _Do they hurt_ he asks once he’s got every one of Charlie’s limbs wrapped around him in some configuration, and Charlie can’t answer that question out loud. He shakes his head _no_ and hopes for the best.

 _Charlie_ Chris says, clear and clipped. Authoritative. Fuck, fuck. _I asked you a question._

 _Hurts_ Charlie manages to say. _Yes, it hurts._

Chris takes pity on him and squeezes his cock through his sodden underwear. The shame opens like a floodgate. It’s not that he’s here now, that’s all right, with only the two of them and the door that’s shut and it being the middle of the night. But he let Chris do those things to him in front of all those strangers and Chris didn’t seem to find it in the least bit unusual. He'd liked it. What's more, _Charlie_ had liked it. Maybe not at the time, but now? Yeah. 

 _Good hurt?_ Chris asks and Charlie wants to scream  _that’s not a thing, it can’t be, it’s just something dull married people have contrived to say in order to seem more interesting than they are at dinner parties_ but it does hurt and it does feel good and it feels good because it does hurt and he might need to think, later on, when his balls aren’t begging to get drained, about why that might be.

Chris says his name again like he’s calling on him in class, waking him from a daydream from staring out the window, again in that voice and Charlie couldn’t tell you what the day was, or how he got up to this office, or what postcode he lives in but he knows that Chris wouldn’t get on his knees for just anyone like he's doing again now. He can hardly bear to watch. 

The wetness has dried in places, and that chafes against the sensitive skin of his cockhead. Chris is only too happy, from the looks of him, to get the underwear soft, pliable again with his warm, wet mouth. He can’t see anything but the top of Chris’s head like this, his hair moving with the motions but if he was able to see he would, in all probability, simply keel over dead.

Chris sits back on his haunches and to Charlie’s very great disappointment, replaces his mouth (goddamn it, his _mouth_ ) with his hand. It covers the whole of Charlie's groin easily. 

 _You’re plenty wet_ he says like it’s a casual conversation. _And you fucking stink._

Charlie feels like he’d got up that morning and put on a skin that'd shrunk three sizes in the wash. He screws his eyes shut and when he opens them Chris has his balls cupped in his palm, giving them an experimental squeeze. They jiggle in his hand, sending a jolt up Charlie's spine. 

 _You must be so full_ , he says, playfully, and goes in to lick down there, too, his hand moving up to cover the hard soaked bulge of Charlie's cock and his stomach goes tense and his vision swims. 

 _Chris_ he manages to choke out between heaving, manic breaths  _Chris, c'mon. I’m really close._

Chris's tongue is hot through the fabric, his hand kneads against his shaft. The head of Charlie's cock shifts against the fabric without any real pressure on it. It's maddening, too much yet not enough to get him there. If he could just have a little more, only a _little bit more_. 

 _Go on then_ he says, his voice drifting up, commanding as ever even though he's on his knees. 

 _What, like this?_ What a prick. Least he could do is tug Charlie off underneath his fucking pants, not this incessant, wet scrape against tender, puffy skin. 

 _It’s like this or it’s nothing at all_ Chris replies, unbothered.  _I'll let you make that choice._  

The fucking bastard. The fucking sadistic fucking _bastard_. 

_Go on, then, finish for me._

 

__\---_ _

 

Somehow, _somehow_ he makes it down the stairs. Somehow he's being tucked into a taxi — Chris paying the driver in advance, telling him Charlie's address — how does he know Charlie's address? — and is leaning his head back against the seat, eyes falling closed. He's wrung out, drained dry. It'd felt like a lot, not that he'd seen it come out. Chris had seemed delighted, and that'd made Charlie warm all over, almost like coming a second time, a hot wave spilling down his neck and across his inner thighs. 

 _Goodnight, Charlie_ Chris says before he shuts the door.  _I'll see you here next week._


End file.
